


Spared

by angeloscastiel



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-09-21
Updated: 2013-09-20
Packaged: 2017-12-27 04:46:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 717
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/974505
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angeloscastiel/pseuds/angeloscastiel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Following a car crash, Death spares Castiel's life at a grave cost - he must find someone else to die in his place. Based on and inspired by Euripides' Alcestis</p>
            </blockquote>





	Spared

Castiel is used to knowing plans. He is used to seeing the fate of mankind spin out on golden thread, used to grand destinies that have been centuries in the making, meticulously detailed and prophesied and documented with nothing left to chance. He is used to foreshadowing and significance and a world in which he is an agent of fate, and as a human has separated his existence, as humans do, in categories of Ordinary and Special; Capital Letter Days and lower case days; days when _things_ happen and days when _nothing_ happens. He knows those Special Days, those Capital Letter Days, by circles on his calendar or whispers in his ear or shrieks across the house in the mornings. Significance announces itself in advance like a polite house-guest, breaking the routine of the ordinary for a brief interlude before normal life resumes again.

Today is a normal day – sunny with scraps of cloud, early spring, cool breeze, slightly too chilly for people to be in the deserted park he cuts through to get to his daughter’s school. There is nothing special, nothing significant, nothing ominous in the clouds or in the sound of birds twittering in the branches or the gusts of wind rustling the leaves, nothing that even commands Castiel’s limited human attention as he hopes his daughter did well on her math test, and whether he should take her out for a hot chocolate to celebrate (or to cheer her up if she didn’t) and there is only a splitsecond as he steps off the curb and sees the ute bearing down on him, only a splitsecond where his limbs freeze in fear and his eyes widen and his brain dimly registers what’s happening, before the sound of screaming brakes and the sickening crunch of metal on bone fills his ears and he is flying, something deep within him singing at the thought, but he is a crumpled, all-too-human heap on the tarmac. He dimly hears screams, running footsteps, sees the blood pooling around himself and feels, with the terrifying certainty of a man who has marvelled at every human sensation in this commandeered body, his life ebbing away.

“No,” he whispers, the word like a prayer, though he knows there is nobody left to pray to. It sounds like pleading on his feeble lips, and Castiel has never pleaded for his life, but he raises his failing eyes to the heavens. “Please. I have a family.”

The first of the bystanders has reached him by now, shouting platitudes as if he is deaf, not dying – “Don’t worry, you’ll be all right, you’ll see your family again” and Castiel knows she is wrong, but he will not correct her as his eyes drift shut, never to look upon the light again…

“Oh, look, it’s God,” a disaffected voice said. “I would say it’s nice to see you again, Castiel, but it really isn’t.”

Death stood over him, a mildly curious expression on his skeletal face. “Pleading for life, are we? What a… _human_ thing to do. Though, I suppose, you have human priorities now. Quite a downgrade, isn’t it? Last time I saw you, you were under rather an _extensive_ delusion of grandeur.”

“Thanatos,” Castiel said coldly. “You’re to be my Reaper?”

“Not yet,” Death replied, looking at him critically. “This should be your time, you know. You are, technically, dead.”

“Then what are you waiting for?”

“You begged for life. From an angel-turned-God-turned-human, I am prepared to negotiate.”

“I won’t negotiate anything. If it’s my time, take me.”

“I’m afraid it’s not that simple. Now you’ve gone and gotten yourself _bonded_ to Dean Winchester—”

“The term you’re looking for is _married.”_

“How touching. You see, if I were to take you, he would want you back. And he would bind me. Again. Being bound irritates me. Being bound by Dean Winchester even more so. I would prefer to avoid that situation.”

“Dean will understand.”

“I doubt that.”

“I will spare you—”

“I don’t want to be spared.”

“You don’t want to raise your daughters? I was under the impression you did.”

“I’m not making a deal with you.”

“Somebody’s changed his tune,” Death said lazily. “You don’t have a choice, Castiel. You have forty-eight hours to find someone to die in your place.”


End file.
